TY - JOUR
T1 - Assuring quality/resisting quality assurance : academics' responses to 'quality' in some Australian universities
AU - Anderson, Gina
PY - 2006
Y1 - 2006
N2 - Academics, although committed to quality in research and teaching, continue to resist quality assurance processes within their universities. This apparent paradox reflects a series of disputes surrounding issues of power, definition and efficacy. This article reports on a study of 30 academics from 10 Australian universities and details their responses to, and critiques of, quality assurance processes in their universities. It is argued that until university management, university quality agencies and academic staff in universities draw on mutually agreed understandings of this contested conceptââ"šÂ¬Ã¢â‚¬Âqualityââ"šÂ¬Ã¢â‚¬Âacademics will continue to resist quality processes, treating them as games to be played and systems to be fed.
AB - Academics, although committed to quality in research and teaching, continue to resist quality assurance processes within their universities. This apparent paradox reflects a series of disputes surrounding issues of power, definition and efficacy. This article reports on a study of 30 academics from 10 Australian universities and details their responses to, and critiques of, quality assurance processes in their universities. It is argued that until university management, university quality agencies and academic staff in universities draw on mutually agreed understandings of this contested conceptââ"šÂ¬Ã¢â‚¬Âqualityââ"šÂ¬Ã¢â‚¬Âacademics will continue to resist quality processes, treating them as games to be played and systems to be fed.
KW - academics
KW - performance appraisals
KW - quality
KW - resistance
KW - student evaluations
UR - http://handle.uws.edu.au:8081/1959.7/33999
M3 - Article
SN - 1353-8322
JO - Quality in Higher Education
JF - Quality in Higher Education
ER -